Friday, 22 December, 2023
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Pomona community rallies around Leo
Noosa Women’s Shed team celebrate
Andrew Kratzmann selected for over 50s
36-page liftout Property Guide
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Festive joy for crowds People sang, children waved glow sticks and the Lions Park on Gympie Terrace overflowed with guests and Christmas joy last Sunday night when the Churches of Noosa presented an evening of Christmas songs. Santa made a surprise visit to the delight of all and even stayed to sing a Christmas favourite, Jingle Bell Rock. And Mayor Clare Stewart wished everyone a Merry Christmas and a safe and enjoyable holiday time. “Tonight we remember those less fortunate, those in need and those suffering and we give thanks for the blessings that we have right here, right now and may 2024 be filled with much love, laughter and happiness for us all,“ she said. Continued page 36 Milah and Kenzie celebrate Christmas in Noosa. Picture: ROB MACCOLL
Shaping Noosa By Phil Jarratt Although it’s difficult to see how any plan to add 900,000 homes and 2.2 million new residents to South East Queensland over the next couple of decades is going to “unlock more of the Queensland we love”, this was the mantra chosen by new Premier Steven Miles to make us feel good about the finalised version of ShapingSEQ 2023, released last Friday.
This mammoth regional plan taking us to 2046 will take far longer to digest than Noosa Today deadlines have allowed for this edition, but in relation to Noosa, one of the first things that became evident over a lengthy scanning of the voluminous document is that it’s big on puffery but light on numbers. Having been warned in the draft plan release several months ago that the State’s projection for
Noosa was 19,100 more residents by 2046, with almost half of them to arrive in the first three to five years, we could be forgiven for hunting through the pages looking and hoping for a massive backdown on that. It’s not to be found in the body of the plan, however Noosa Today understands that based on supportive figures provided to Noosa Council, the net population increase has been
peeled back to 18,800, with the five-year kickstart removed. That still blows the so-called population cap out of the water, but it seems to indicate that the Miles Government is willing to negotiate with councils to keep some semblance of order in their own planning schemes, to meet them somewhere on their own growth projections. Continued page 6
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